5 comments:

****************************Those reading this blog from outside of NYC need to be aware that ICE's views are not shared by the vast number of educators working here. Being loud and vocal does not make a majority. Actually, ICE's numbers which are always low in the elections were down considerably in this election.

If your excuse is to try to down play the number of total voters, surely you must realize that what you're doing is essentially stating that ICE received next to nothing in votes.

****************************Those reading this blog from outside of NYC need to be aware that ICE's views are not shared by the vast number of educators working here. Being loud and vocal does not make a majority. Actually, ICE's numbers which are always low in the elections were down considerably in this election.

Mr. Unity be sure to say thank you to Randi for selling out the DC teachers. We're probably next.

Daily News

A lesson for New York: Washington teachers set a pattern the city should follow

EditorialMonday, April 12th 2010

National teachers union President Randi Weingarten has negotiated a groundbreaking contract for her members in Washington that must become a model for New York.

The deal represents a courageous step forward in recognizing that schools must be staffed only with instructors of proven effectiveness. It accepts rewarding those with special merit and recognizes that administrators need leeway to ease out those who fail to measure up.

Several of the tentative pact's provisions would be of enormous benefit in New York, to preserve the quality of education in the event of massive teacher layoffs and to save tens of millions of dollars in salaries now paid to unwanted instructors.

Gov. Paterson, the Legislature and Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch would be wise to work with New York's teachers unions in an effort to incorporate Weingarten's milestone reforms into New York's renewed application for as much as $700 million in federal Race to the Top funding.

If Weingarten's Washington members approve, they will get 20% raises and the ability to volunteer for a merit program that will reward proven effectiveness in boosting achievement with salaries of as much as $146,000.

Additionally, principals would be freed from following strict seniority when they bump teachers out of jobs because schools are downsizing. The primary criterion for judging which teachers to keep and which to let go would be performance.

Currently, these so-called excessed teachers are inserted into jobs in new schools. That force-feeding would end under the pact.

nstead, teachers who had previously been rated as ineffective would be let go. Others would have a choice of retiring if they have 20 years' service and are over 60, accepting a $25,000 buyout or staying on the payroll as substitute teachers or tutors while applying for posts. These last would be let go if they failed to get hired in a year.

New York is in dire need of such a system.

More than 1,100 city teachers are currently assigned to what's known as the absent teacher reserve pool at a cost of $100 million annually.

These are instructors who have been bumped out of jobs because schools have closed or downsized. They are paid while they hunt for slots, most serving functions such as substitute teaching.

Many discover that they are unwanted on a permanent basis anywhere in the more than 1,000 schools in the five boroughs. Others stop looking for work while collecting checks.

The school system has no authority to dismiss any of them - even the 25% who have been subject to unsatisfactory job performance ratings. By the start of the next school year, the vast majority will have been in the pool for a year or more. Some have been there since 2006.

What's more, the teachers' contract stipulates the schools chancellor must follow strict seniority in layoffs. And the impact of that limitation will be devastating if the state budget deficit forces the city to cut thousands of teachers, as seems likely.

There will be two blows: an increase in class sizes and mass dislocations as senior staff members cut from one school bump junior teachers from other schools - without regard to quality of work.

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein needs the power to reduce staff on a school-by-school basis, to consider effectiveness in selecting candidates for cuts and to work out severance for bumped instructors who are turned down by principals systemwide.

Those - plus merit pay - are essentially the terms of the Washington pact. Weingarten deserves enormous credit for taking major strides toward school reform, while remaining true to her members. She has shown the way for New York.

Additionally the Department of Labor provides other reports about the UFT. Go to their site and input file number 063-924 at the top and select the type of report you want to review. These files are in spreadsheet format.